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Three content strategies from the charity sector

Online giving is growing, and year-on-year the role social media plays in fundraising and marketing increases.

Online, particularly social, is already important, with 47% of Americans learning about a particular cause via an online channel.

Trevor Neilson of the Global Philanthropy Group states, “in the next two years, social media will become the primary way that Americans give money to charity.”

So with online proving so important, who is doing what with content online in the charity sector? Here are three organisations with quite different approaches, detailed in Aegis Media and Social Misfits Media’s new guide to social and content for charities.

Movember: the photographs

In November 2012, 1.1m people in 21 different countries took part in Movember and raised $147m for men’s health causes.

The beauty of Movember is the mo-wearer is encouraged both to promote their cause and provide the charity with tons of user-generated content.

All Movember.com registrants have a Mo Space page, to document their fundraising and instigate competition, facially and financially. They challenge each other on leadership boards, earn badges and join forces with Mo Bros and Mo Sistas. Mo Space pages feature a photograph of the participant as well as amount of dollar raised.

Sharing is key, with users encouraged to send photos to social networks along with pre-packaged information on men’s health.

New branding every year

Movember creates a new campaign theme each year, to generate anticipation and publicity ahead of the annual launch. 2013’s ‘Generation Moustache’ theme is very different from last year’s ‘Movember and Sons: purveyors of knowledge and fine moustaches’ branding.

Movember’s originality and social media focus also appeals to brands. Deodorant, Speedstick, as an example, created a series of YouTube videos featuring the misadventures of a clumsy man with a ‘Mo.’

Similarly, in 2012, Mr. Clean, Proctor & Gamble’s mascot, wore a moustache in his profile picture that grew with every ‘like’ it received. Every retweet of his picture on Twitter raised $1 for Movember.

Breakthrough: the videos

Human rights organisation Breakthrough seeks to eradicate all forms of violence against women. Its campaign Bell Bajao (“Ring the Bell”) encourages men in India, and now China, Vietnam, Nepal and Pakistan, to take a stand and disrupt domestic violence.

Bell Bajao was designed to be an action-orientated campaign. A series of videos encourage a simple action; if you hear domestic violence, go and ring the doorbell.

‘Ring the bell’ is a simple message, and all 12 videos last under two minutes. The clarity of message helps to create a holistic campaign, where the video’s call to action prompts intervention. In this respect, the success of the videos is a large step towards the campaign making a breakthrough (no pun intended).

AfriKids: the blog

Founder, Georgie Fienberg, discusses the importance of analytics, either at a detailed level, or simply broadly to optimise activity during the day.

AfriKids finds Twitter most useful for targeting influencers, for example, writing a blog article in response to a newspaper piece and then tweeting directly at the journalist in question.

Georgie comments, “their audience for a particular piece is exactly the same as ours so we can amplify our reach by engaging with them and getting them to share.”

AfriKids uses Facebook for broader appeal in an informal environment. Different timings work best for the two networks; Facebook, late afternoon, and Twitter during the day.

Part of the blog’s success is that it looks nice, is fairly cheap to maintain, built mostly on the WordPress platform, and engages directly with donors.

Georgie says:

Blogging is a great way to publically recognise donors, show them their money at work, and regularly provide them with content.

Different things to different people

Liam Nolan, AfriKid’s Fundraising and Communications Manager, adds:

Each post can appeal to a different audience. One day we may use the blog to put up messages of thanks for those who have taken part in challenge events, for example, but the next day may want to use it as a forum to share our organisational standpoint on a particular issue. As long as we’re consistent in tone and voice and introducing guest bloggers, it’s a great way to be many things to many people.

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Comments (1)

Even the charity sector needs these content strategies. This will let other people know about the charity works. I will surely share this post because not everybody knows about how to market their charity organization.

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